FBI investigating Meeks's $40K personal loan

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), already under investigation by the Justice Department, has repaid a $40,000 personal loan that he had failed to declare on his annual financial disclosure reports for more than two years, but only after the FBI started looking into the transaction.

According to the New York Daily News, Meeks recently gave Queens businessman Ed Ahmad — who loaned Meeks $40,000 in January 2007 — a check for $59,000. The Daily News said the payment by Meeks was made after FBI agents questioned Ahmad over the loan.

That amount paid by Meeks covered the original $40,000 loan plus interest, although the newspaper said Meeks has been unable to provide any paperwork documenting details of the loan.

Meeks did not report the loan on his 2007 or 2008 financial disclosure reports. Under House ethics rules, lawmakers must provide details any financial liabilities they have incurred.

POLITICO reported in April that Meeks was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in Manhattan as part of an ongoing corruption probe into some of the most powerful pols in Queens, including former Democratic Rep. Floyd Flake, New York Senate President Malcolm Smith and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.

The National and Legal Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, alleges Meeks obtained got a “sweetheart deal” on a luxury home he built in Queens. The NLPC said the home “was built by Robert Gaskin, a contractor who does work on numerous projects for which Meeks has secured taxpayer funds.” Meeks paid $830,000 for the home in October 2007, but it was appraised at nearly $1.24 million less than a year later.

In 2008, Meeks was fined $63,000 by the Federal Election Commission for improperly using campaign funds to pay personal expenses.

Meeks has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has accused the NLPC of waging a politically motivated attack against him and Rep. Charles Rangel, another embattled New York Democrat.